THE Cimmerian MATRON, To which is added, THE Mysteries and Miracles OF LOVE.  
By P. M. Gent.  
Qui cavet, ne decipiatur; vix cavet, etiam cum cavet:  
Etiam cum cavisse ratus est, is cautor captus est.  Plautus. 
In the SAVOY: Printed for Henry Herringman at the Sign of the Anchor in the Lower-walk of the New-Exchange. 1668.   

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE Ephesian Matron.  
My dearest Friend,  
YOu can be, I perceive, both highly obliging, and no less severe to one and the same Person, in one and the same act. When you were pleased last Summer, to sand me your EPHESIAN MATRON, with strict Command, that I should entertain her, as jealous Italians do their Mistresses, mew her up in my Cabinet, from sight of the whole world: You sent a Present ( I aclowledge) than which nothing could have been more grateful; but you conjoined therewith a Restriction, than which none could have been more rigorous. You gave me good Wine, and then gelded it with Water; as the Spanish saying is of such, who destroy their own benefits. Like an imperious Lord, you would have had the Lady my tenant at your will: and after you had made me a free Grant, you inserted a Proviso to render it voided. In a word, your Injunction to me, to restrain her from the conversation of all others, was not only tyrannical and inhuman in itself( for, as our great Moralist, and beloved Author, Chaucer, in the Wife of Bath's Prologue.  
He is to great a Niggarde, that will werne  
A man, to light a candle at his lantern;)  
but also inconsistent with both the goodness of her nature, and the freedom of my enjoying the pleasures thereof. For,  
First, the love of Liberty is no less natural to the soft and delicate Sex, than to our harder and marshal one: nor doth our Magna Charta contain more privileges and Franchises, than theirs. Nay, their Beauty, as being the offspring of light( for Plato defined it to be the lustre of the Soul resplendent in the body) justifies their abhorrence of confinement. Hence no Law-givers have ever been so unreasonable, so unhuman, as to abridge Women of their native privilege of a free and open conversation with Men. And we should live but uncomfortably at best, if we denied them, especially while they are young, handsome, and well dressed, to show themselves abroad in company, and appear in frequent assemblies. Besides, as the same Wife of Bathe speaks in the name of her whole sex, 
We love no man, that taketh keep or charge  
Where that we go; we woll be at our large.  Nor is it less difficult to put restraint upon a Lady of her sprightly and debonair humour, than to imprison the Sun-beams, catch the winds in a net, or impound an Eagle( as the Aldermen of Gotham did a cuckoo) within a hedge: and he who is so well conceited of his vigilancy, or power, as to attempt it; is capable of being persuaded also, that he can make Glass malleable, square the circled, prevent the decay of beauty by Time, or repair it by the oil of Talk. Novelty is a Loadstone to us all, especially to Women, who naturally are so much given to Curiosity, that some Divines have held, our Great Grandmother Eve had never longed for the forbidden fruit, had it not been forbidden. Hence that Proverb, where jealousy is Jaylor, most break prison, which was literally verified in the Wife of the gaoler, in Aristenatus; who though strictly watched and locked up by the jealous Coxcomb her Husband, yet found an opportunity to be loose, while she was in strong hold.  
Quisquis vectibus& seris  
Custodit uxorem, cum sibi sapiens videatur  
Stultus est.  
Again, you were not ignorant, that I am of so Charitable and Communicative a Genius, that I hate to eat my morsels alone, though they be never so sweet and delicious. One of my Maxims is, quo communius, eo suavius; the more delectable I find any thing to myself, the more desirous I am to impart the same to my Friends and Acquaintance: it being not the least of my pleasures, to accommodate and please others.  
Knowing, therefore, on one part, that the Ephesian was amiable, tempting and witty; and on the other, that I am no monopoliser of such Commodities, but of a public spirit and free-hearted: You ought either not to have put her into my hands, or not to have expected I should restrain her from showing her self to the world. Nor am I to be so much blamed, for permitting her to go to London, and appear openly in the New Exchange: as you are for imagining, that so fair and polite a Creature deserved such harsh usage, as to be always confined with me in an obscure Country Village among fanatic Weavers and Cloth-workers.  
But, you'll say( I presume) as poor Malbecco said in excuse of his jealousy; that you grounded your command of secrecy, not upon distrust of the Matrons virtue, but upon fear of having your judgement and honour brought into question, if the censorious World should once come to know, who it was, that brought her from Rome, and furnished her with so handsome an English dress. And this seems a good Caution; but was it a prudent one? What cause had you for it? More than one. Well then, I guess at your thoughts. You feared, lest some men might be of so severe a brow, as to think you had forgotten the Gravity required in a Philosopher, and one of your ripe years, while you indulged your Pen, the liberty of touching upon an Amorous Argument, though without violation of Modesty, and only for divertisement. You feared, lest others, less acquainted with Books, might mistake the History for a Fiction; and you for the Author: and thereupon take occasion to discredit both. You feared again, lest others might pervert the sense of your Text by a false Comment, interpret what you intended only for an innocent and facete Exercise of your Wit, to be a design of Malice, a studied satire against Women. These are all the Reasons I can imagine you could allege against my exposing to public view that good-natured Stranger.  
To let you see, then, how much you were deceived in the weight of these Objections, suggested to you by your fear of Detraction and Scandal; and withall briefly to Apologize for my own transgression, of your Command, in transmitting the Ephesian to the Press( for, that I own to my act:) I find myself obliged to perpend them one by one in the balance of Equity.  
In the First place, you had no reason to think Love to be so juvenile and sooty an Argument, that you could not handle it without contracting stains upon your Reputation. For, that Erotic passion is allowed by all learned men to be a species of Melancholy, and in that name your very Profession gave you a just title to inquire into the origine, nature, causes, signs, symptoms, &c. thereof. Again, you have the authority of no less man than Marsilius Ficinus( in praefat. ad Convivium Platonis) omnem Amorem honestum esse,& bonum, omnesque amore dignos, qui been dicunt de amore; that all Love is honest and good, and all those worthy to be loved, who speak well of it. Nor need you seek long for Presidents in the case. Among ancient Philosophers, you have Plato ( {αβγδ}) Xenophon( sympos.) Theophrastus( if we may believe Athenaeus, lib. 13. cap. 9.) Plutarch, Plotinus, Maximus Tyrius, Cadmus Milesius( who, as Langius, in lib. 1. Epist. 24. observes out of Suidas, wrote no less than 14. Books of Love) and Avicenna. Among the Moderns, Picus Mirandula, Marius Aequicola, both in Italian; Kornmannus de linea Amoris lib. 3. Petrus Godefridus, in as many; and P. Haedus. Of Physicians, you have Arnoldus de villa nova, Valleriola, Aelian Montaltus, in their Treatises of Melancholy; Valescus de Taranta, Gordonius, Hercules de Saxonia, Savanarola, Langius, Sennertus, Tulpius: some of whom have written express Tractates of the nature and extent of Love-melancholly; and others rare observations of the strange and prodigious Effects of the same. Yea, of Divines themselves you have Examples not a few; of which I shall put you in mind only of two, as most memorable. One is that of Heliodorus, a reverend Bishop, who penned the famous Love-story of Theagines and Chariclea: and when some sour Cato's of that time reprehended him for it, choose rather( saith Nicephorus, Histor. lib. 12. cap. 34.) to leave his bishopric, than disavow his Book. The other is of Aeneas Silvius, an ancient Theologue; who after the 40. year of his age, as himself confesseth ( in praefat. lib. 1.) composed that wanton Roman of Euryalus and Lucrecia. To these I could have added other two eminent Divines of our own time and Nation, Mr Burton, who wrote copiously and learnedly of Love-melancholy; and Dr. tailor, who thought it no diminution of his Gravity, to recount( if I remember well, in his Art of living and dying virtuously) the very same story of the Ephesian Matron, as an instance of Human Frailty. Nay, I might allege the Loves of Jacob and Rachel, of Sichem and Dinah, Juda and Thamar, samson and Dalilah, David and Bersheba, Ammon and his Sister, Salomon and Pharaoh's Daughter, &c. all mentioned in Sacred Writ. But I have been already too prolix in an Argument so common and obvious. To conclude this first part, therefore, of your Justification; if it were no dishonour to these grave Authors to have treated of Love; why should you, a Natural Philosopher, and yet no old man, apprehended it so dangerous a thing to your good name, to let the world know, you had bestowed a few vacant hours, for your divertisement, upon the same Subject? Had you been at that time twice as old as you are now, I, for my part, should have liked your Characters of Love so much the better: because( as the Lord John answered the Queen in that Italian Guazzo, lib. 4. de civili conversatione) a grave and discreet Person is fittest to discourse of Amorous adventures, as having more experience, and more stayed judgement, to make wholesome and useful remarks thereupon, for the advice and caution of greener heads.  
As for your Second imaginary Objection, viz. that the Ephesian might be thought the Minerva of your Brain, your natural Daughter, when indeed she was only your adopted one: certainly, my dear Friend, you had laid aside your considering-cap, when you suffered so light a conceit to make any the least impression upon your skull. For, every Scholar very well knows, that the Lady being the Daughter of Petronius Arbiter, in his Satyricon, cannot therefore be less then sixteen hundred years elder than you. Whether she was a True, or a Romantique one; the Author having kept that in his breast, I am not able, after so long an interval of time, to determine. But thus much I can assure those, who doubt of her Reality; that Flavianus, apud Salisberiensem, affirms that the Story is a true one, and that the Woman suffered death for her parricidal wichedness and adultery, as he( in my judgement too severely) stiles her fault. This Parenthesis begets a Digression.  
I say, too severely; because her Husband being newly dead of some violent sickness, and she then a Widow, when she so graciously obliged the soldier: where was either her Parricide, or her Adultery? I should think, that either the Ephesian Laws against removing the dead out of their sepulchers, were inhumanly strict; if her Judges were thereby obliged to account that fact in her equivalent to Parricide: or that Flavianus had been misinformed in that part of the Story. For, as to the other part of her Charge, her so facile and sudden giving her self up to the Souldiers embraces; had the Laws of the place made it capital( which I believe they did not, because I never red of any Laws so extremely rigorous, in any of the Cities of Greece) yet she had wit enough to evade them, by pretending Marriage to her new Lover. Here I have an opportunity to observe to you, that though that excellent Divine, newly quoted, Dr. tailor, was pleased so to sweeten and extenuate the Levity of the Woman, as to tell his Readers, that she married the soldier in the Vault, yet I cannot assent to him in that particular. The words of Petronius, indeed, are these; Jacuerunt,( or, as the best critics red, latuerunt) una, non tantum illa nocte, qua nuptias fecerunt, said postero etiam ac tertio die, &c. But all who are conversant in the Latin tongue, well understand, that nubere& nuptias facere, is by a modest Metalepsis used, by the ancient Romans, pro {αβγδ}; as Plautus used it, Pseud. act. 1. scen. 3. and as Voscius( in Etymologic.) judiciously holds Petronius to have used it in this place. Which I occasionally touched upon, not as a defect of judgement, but an excess of Charity in that learned and pious Divine; who was willing to honest the poor womans lapse, by an interpretation to her most favourable, and to her Sex least offensive.  
To return to my tracing of the Story itself. Jan. Dousa, in his Notes upon this Chapter of Petronius, tells us, that the very same Novel was put into elegant Latin verse by one Romulus, an antic Grammarian; that long after that it was copiously written in the German language, and thence translated again into Latin, by Fr. Modius, a Civilian, who changed the persons, new-molded the Story, and published it under this Title: Ludus septem sapientum de Astrei, regii adolescentis, educatione, periculis, &c. and that about the year of Christ M.CC. it was rendered in French Rithm by Hebertus, a Clerk. To these I could have added others also, through whose hands our Matron passed, had I not wanted the latest Edition of Petronius by Gabbema, who has been diligent in deriving her pedigree; and to whom I am compelled to refer you. Mean while it is well known even to the vulgar of our Nation, that she hath found a place in the Book of the Seven Wise Masters; and is the chief Person in the Comedy called the Widdows Tears. Now it being thus credible, that the Ephesian was no Roman, no Fairy or Child of Fancy, but a very Woman of flesh and blood, and notoriously manifest, that she hath been favourite to many learned and grave Men, who have handed her down( {αβγδ}) from Nation to Nation, from age to age, keeping the torch of her beauty unextinct, and giving her a perpetual Youth by the Nepenthe of their immortal pens: whoever shall take her for Your Daughter( I do not say Mistress) will discover ignorance enough to render him the subject of scorn and derision; nor will he more easily find belief among the sober and judicious, than if he should report you to be the soldier, who cured her of her Grief, by easing himself of his Love.  
As for the Last Objection, your fear to fall into the displeasure of the Ladies, who being naturally jealous of the honour of their sex, possibly might suspect the Book to be at best but a well-disguis'd satire against them: I conceive that to be already sufficiently prevented, partly by what you have, in many places of the Book itself, said in honour of their Virtues; partly by my precedent solutions of your two former Objections. For, since I have made it apparent, that you are not the first Philosopher who hath exercised his wit and pen in consideration of their admirable power of Love, nor Author of Story of that Amorous Adventure of the Ephesian, which Ladies are most likely to condemn: I see no reason, why any Woman should take offence, for that you have in chast and unblamable language illustrated the nature of the Former, by observing the wonderful Accidents of the Later. All causes are best known by their effects: and in all Arguments, simplo Discourses, without Examples, are flat and unpersuasive. To me, therefore, it seems rather a virtue, than a fault in you, that having designed to examine the forces of that Universal Tyrann, Love; You made choice of a short and memorable Story, in which the same were clearly Exemplified. Besides this, I can allege in your defence, what the learned Mycillus, being reprehended for translating some of the profaner Dialogues of Lucian, pleaded in his own; Operi suscepto serviendum fuit, you were obliged to comply with your Province, and to prosecute the work you had taken in hand.  
If it be farther urged, that you bring in the soldier most bitterly railing upon, and blaspheming the whole Sex, I answer, that you could not with decency avoid it. Because you were bound in your Narration to introduce him in that distemper of Passion, into which his misfortune and danger had transported him. Otherwise you could not conserve the {αβγδ}( as Aristotle properly calls it) the Decorum of either his Person, or his passion, or the Occasion of it. For, he is delivered to have been no accomplished and polite Courtier, nor unpassionate Stoic, but a blunt and Choleric Fellow, a Common soldier: and being enraged at the stealing away of the Malefactors carcase from the Gibbet, and reflecting upon the obliging Lady( who, as you well observe, deserved more respect and gratitude at his hands) as the chief cause of his negligence: it is highly probable, that he broke forth into dire imprecations& reproaches, such perhaps as those, in which you imagine him to have vented his furious resentments. In Poets, all acknowledge it an Excellency; to accommodate every person whom they introduce, with language and action agreeable to his Character& Passion: why then should the same be a 'vice in you, where you were obliged to represent a person almost distracted with a syndrome of Remorse, Fear, Anger and Despair; the least of which was violent enough to make him forget his late obligations to his Mistress, and the civility due to her Sex? So that it may with more justice be said, that the soldier put that invective Harangue into your Pen; than it can, that you put it into his mouth. In fine, I dare be so far your Compurgator in the case, as to swear, that it went against your very soul to be necessitated, by the condition of your Theme, to say any thing that tended to the disparagement of the beautiful and delicate Sex: and however you may suffer by the prejudice of some Ladies, to whom your Person and Conversation are unknown; there are others, I am sure, who will vindicate you from the infamy of a Woman-hater.  
Now, my dearest Friend, if what you have heard me say here, in way of a short Remonstrance of the Innocency and candour of your Ephesian, be judged by you sufficient to reconcile the Ladies to her, and myself to you, after my offence committed against both, in exposing her to public censure: truly I shall think myself no less happy in being instrumental to your vindication, than I have thought myself unhappy in being so to your Scandal. If not, there is no way left for me to expiate my fault, but by involving myself also in the same danger, to which my excess of good-nature hath made you obnoxious. Having in sport thrown you into the river, and finding you unable to bear up against the impetuous torrent of Feminine prejudice, that is violent enough to overset a Navy: I am resolved to leap in after, and either save you from sinking, or perish with you. Well then, to let you see how far I dare to hazard my own famed, to preserve yours; behold a Second Matron, whose Amorous Adventure very nearly resembles that of the kind Ephesian. She in like manner falls into an Intrigue( as they now adays call it) with a soldier, and at first fight too: and encountering no small difficulty in the pursuit of her love, is witty enough both to surmount that, and conceal her stolen pleasures, by a trick that passed for no less than a Miracle. Having found the Novel in the Comus sieve Phagesiposia Cimmeria of that witty and erudite Noble Italian, Erycius Puteanus; and out of his elegant Latin translated into plain English; I now bring it as a Handmaid to wait upon the Ephesian, at least, if you think it worthy of that honour. And because I would have this Cimmerian come as near to the Ephesian in Habit and Equipage, as she doth in Manners and Fortune; I have taken a little pains to dress her, as you did the other, like the Mistress of a Philosopher. Finding it very undecent to interlace the Narration with Philosophical Speculations, as you have done the former; because her adventure admits no pauses or intervals, wherein the Reader ought to be diverted for Modesty sake: I have been constrained, therefore, to put all her Garniture in one place, at the end, where you will meet with it under the title of The Mysteries and Miracles of Love.¶  

Here endeth the squires Prologue,  
and here after followeth his Tale.    

THE CIMMERIAN MATRON.  
ON the Confines of Cimmeria, there, not long since lived a certain Gentlewoman, of shape more exact than a Statue formed by all the rules of Leon Battista Alberti; of features and complexion more sweet and delicate then those of Venus her self; of reputation as clear and immaculate as Diana. Wife she was to one, whom Usury had made Rich, and Riches eminent; with whom she enjoyed all the pleasures of conjugal Love and Fidelity; not so much as dreaming of any content but in his indulgence and embraces.  
But, ah! how mutable are human Affections! how many faults doth time discover, which were before concealed! This Woman had but newly acquired the famed of a chased and obsequious Wife, when Lust succeeding into the place of honesty, wrought so unhappy a change in her, that now she began to nauseate the wholesome viands of the Marriage bed, and long for strange and forbidden delicates; insomuch, that her former humour of complacency and fondness by degrees degenerated into a perfect abhorrence of the Person and Company of her most uxorious Husband.  
For, having by accident cast her eyes upon a young Soldier, naked, and bathing himself; Love entred into them together with the image of the tempting object. [ nudus membra Pyracmon— 
She saw the man, that he was like a Knight,  
And suffisaunt of person and of might,  
And like to been a very gentleman;  
And well his words he beset can,  
And had a noble visage for the nones,  
And formed well of brawn and of bones;  
And after Venus had such faireness,  
That no man might be half so faire I guess:  
And well a Lord he feemed for to be.  
And for he was a stranger, some what she  
Liked him the bet; as God do boat,  
To some folk often new thing is sote,]   
Yet be not too severe in condemning the passion of a frail Woman, You, who know how strong and quick assaults Cupid often makes upon Forts so weakly man'd, and with what unresistible Artillery he is provided. Her Husband observing a change in her, at first admired what should be the cause of her discontent, and coldness toward him; using in the mean time all imaginable caresses and endearments to sweeten her melancholy, and dispel those gloomy clouds that had overcast her joys. After all his Courtship and Arts of Kindness proving unsuccessful, he grew suspicious( what was indeed too true) that she had removed her Affection from him, and fixed it upon some other person. For, though she carefully concealed from him her flamme, and often endeavoured to suppress it, even with showers of tears, especially when 'twas newly kindled: yet that, like wild-fire, raging the more by opposition, and breaking forth in flashes of discontent, she was not able so to hid it, but that he perceived her heart was scorched: Her melancholy had quiter altered the graceful and charming air of her face, consumed her spirits, destroyed the Roses in her cheeks, bedimm'd the Iustre of her sparkling eyes, and reduced her to a dejected and languishing condition. To these symptoms you may add restless nights, broken discourses, love of solitude, sudden startings, unwilling sighs, and all other signs, by which a wounded heart is forced to betray itself. No wonder then, if the vigilant Usurer soon became confirmed in his jealousy; which yet he used as much cunning to obscure from her, as she had to conceal her passion from him. But Love is no less difficult to be resisted, than to be disguised: and now our impatient Matron can no longer live without the help of her Gallant.  
Having therefore some knowledge of a certain wise Woman of the same Town, one of the Grand-daughters of Pandarus, such as the French call Messageurs d' Amour, a Bawd of Quality, she addresses to her, and without much difficulty engages her to go Ambassadress to the Man of Arms, and negotiate with him about a firm League of Love, and a private interview upon the first fair opportunity. In this Treaty, there needed not much of rhetoric on the part of this Oratrix, the Soldier,( who was indeed so handsome and proper a Fellow, that Diana her self might without any disparagement to her judgement, have preferred him to Endymion; and wanted not wit enough to serve himself of so advantageous an occasion) accepting and assenting to the conditions proposed with all alacrity and gratitude imaginable. So that now nothing was wanting to the mutual ratification of the amorous Ligue, but an opportunity for the two Princes( for, such their hopes had made them) interchangeably to sign and Seal, which the watchfulness of the jealous Husband made extremely difficult: he making it his main business to observe, not only all the motions of her feet, and whither she went at any time, but those also of her eyes; so that you would have thought the beatious Jo once again committed to the custody of Argus.  
Among a thousand other plots and stratagems his troubled Imagination suggested to him, towards the discovery of what he equally feared and desired to know, he at last fixes upon this, as most hopeful, to pretend a journey from home, and by an unexpected return to surprise his wife; confident, by this artifice, he should at length arrive at the certain knowledge both of the nature and cause of her disease. According to this politic resolution, he prepares for a long journey, and dissembling a sad valediction to his dear Fidessa( who, you may believe, as truly counterfeited sorrow as himself, and moistened her parting kisses with artificial tears) sets forth early in the morning, in an hour long wished for on both sides, nor unlucky to either.  
No sooner was the Husband gone, than the glad Wife thinking that now the propitious time drew near, when her desires should be crowned with solid pleasures, and her imaginary embraces exchanged for real ones; soon gave Commission to her Emissary, who was the very buckle and thong of Venery, instantly to advertise her Paramore, that the Festival of Love was come, and that the Husbands departure had opened the door to their meeting with freedom and security. This welcome message was as speedily delivered as received, and an Assignation made, that immediately after the wearied Sun had resigned his Empire in the upper Hemisphere to Night, and mortals began to supply his absence with an artifical day of Candle-light; our valiant and well provided Lover should come to the back door of his Saints chapel, by which he should be introduced and conducted into the Chancel, and thence to the Altar, upon which he was to offer up his Sacrifice and pay his vows; and that done, return to his quarters, without the least suspicion of the Neighbours. In the mean time, lest the Incense he brought with him might not be sufficient to maintain the flamme of love the whole night, and his zeal cool through too much fervency at first; the provident Matron made ready a Collation of generous Wines, Conserves, and other restorative quelques chooses, to help carry on the work; and set them in order upon a little Table in her bed-chamber. She contrived also her affair so circumspectly, as to sand her Chamber-maid, who was indeed the Husbands principal spy over her, to the wedding of a Neighbours Daughter, not without reason, presuming that the wenches curiosity to prie into the pleasant rites of the Bridal night, and her ambition to be most lucky in the superstitious sport of throwing, the Brides stocking, would long enough divert her from her charge at home. And thus far all things went on according to their wishes, nor did any thoughts disquiet the calmer breasts of our pair of Lovers, but such as usually arise from vehement expectation; the Soldier dreaming of nothing but Victory, Triumph, and Spoils; and the Lady of high content in having her Fort new man'd, and making the Assailant her Captive. But, O, the capriciousness of Fortune! or rather the vigilance of jealousy!  
The appointed hour being at length come, the punctual Soldier making hast to enter upon his Duty, to guard the fair Matron from Spectres and Goblins, in the absence of her Husband; advanceth to the postern door of her house, as he had been directed, but finding it shut, and hearing no noise within, he made a halt, and very discreetly forbearing to knock, fell to the posture of a diligent Sentinel, softly walking to and fro in the narrow Alley that lead to the house from the Street, where while he was exercising his patience, it most unluckily happened, that the no less vigilant and impatient Husband( who had concealed himself at a Friends in the Neighbourhood) returned by the same Alley, and stealing along as sortly and warily as a Thief to commit Burglary, takes good notice of the night-walker, whom he immediately concluded within himself to be the Mars, on whom his Venus was so furiously ennamour'd; whereupon, entering his house, and locking the door behind him, with as little noise as a Pick-lock; he finds his wife in a dress of neat and rich night-linnen, like a Bride going to bed, which adding more fuel to his suspicion, and exasperating the sense of his wrong; he puts on the countenance of rage and terror, with enflamed and threatening eyes staring, as Caesars Ghost upon Brutus, upon h●s poor surprised wife, who stood as still, by reason of her astonishment, as if she had been congealed by lightning, or transformed into a Statue. For shane upon the unexpected frustration of an evil design, doth ususually produce confusion. Her soul, conscious of infidelity hitherto only in imagination and design, began to presage more evils, than it could have deserved, had her design succeeded into Act; the violence of her passion being favourably considered. But, could she so soon have recollected her disordered spirits, and recovered the use of her tongue; her Husband's fury would have restrained her, and he yet could only breath revenge, not utter it in words, After a little pause, going into her bed-chamber, he there encounters with fresh causes of suspicion; the dressing-Table by the bed-side richly furnished with provoking delicates, clean sheets, perfumed pillows, and above all, his spy, the Chambermaid, conjured out of the way; confirmed in his jealousy by these convincing signs, he now meditates upon nothing but Revenge, and how to effect it with the more security and appearance of justice. Resolved, therefore, by cruelty to extort a Confession, and so make her her own accuser; without speaking a word, he strips her to her snow-white skin, and carrying her down into the Porch, there binds her delicate Arms to one of the Pillars: had you been so happy to have beholded her in that deplorable posture, doubtless you would have thought you had seen the beautiful Andromede a second time chained naked to a Rock, and one, though perhaps not quiter so chased as she, yet, if Beauty had its due, 
She could not merit any bonds, beside  
Those, with which Lovers mutualy are tied;  and well worthy another Perseus to deliver, love and enjoy her. The hard-hearted Usurer, fancying to himself some satisfaction in this first Act of the Tragedy he intended; retires to his bed( though likely to have but a melancholy night of it, without his Consort) hoping by sleep to recompose his troubled mind.  
In the mean time, our Man of War, who had promised to himself the height of all enjoyments, lay( Soldier like) perdieu in the open Air; and when he had, till almost midnight in vain watched his Mistresses door, which still continued as fast shut, as the Temple of Janus in time of peace, he returns back to the house of his She-Officer the Bawd, whom he found half naked, and prepared to keep one of Venus's Vigils with a Client of hers( for her Clients were often forced to gratify her, for soliciting their Love-causes, with such Fees) whom at that very hour she expected. Ho, Mother, says he, with what tedious hope do I purchase from the Lady the pleasure promised me? I have already consumed a whole hour( longer indeed than a whole winters night) in fruitless expectation; while she, who sought my Love; and made the Assignation, hath not vouchsafed to open the door. 'tis very strange, methinks, unless having forgot both her self and her appointment, she hath butted her amour in sleep. Go thy ways, dear Mother, and inquire the cause of my disappointment, and what commands the Lady hath for me; if to readvance, lo, I am ready for the combat; if to retreat, I am as ready to march off with flying Colours, and defer the encounter till another night. Scarcely were these last words out of his mouth, when the Bawd, incited partly by the sense of her honour( for, those of her Trade must be punctual in their assignations) and partly by commiseration of his impatience, hastily casting a Mantle,( a most useful garment in such cases) over her shoulders, catches the Soldier by the hand, and conducts him back to the door; which she opens with a Key given her by the Matron some while before, for her private access upon occasion, and entreating him to stand close and silent for a few minutes without, she passes on through the Wood-yard and a little Garden, till she arrived at the walk under the Porch, where groping along, she had almost run her head against the living Statue there bound to a Pillar; which she no sooner discerned, but surprised with horror, as at sight of a Ghost or Apparition, she stood still and gazed with affrighted eyes. The milky whiteness of the Matrons skin to some degree, overcame the darkness of the moonless night; nor would it suffer her to be longer unperceived; so that the Bawd soon recovering her self out of her first consternation, boldly approaches to the Lady; and, omitting to inquire into the cause of her being in that strange and lamentable condition, delivers in few words the Soldiers message, even at that time not ungrateful to the receiver; for, the Lady finding the chains of Love more intolerable, than those of her barbarous Husband; and endowed with a Wit no whit inferior to her Beauty; soon apprehended, that now she had an opportunity to convert this her misfortune into a benefit, and that she ought not to despond, nor despair of reaping the delights, which the jealousy of her Husband had hitherto prevented. Thus reanimated with fresh hope, she begins to wheadle the Engineer of Lust, and pouring the oil of good language and endearing expressions into her ears, My dearest Mother, says she, my good Angel, I can bear this my affliction with patience, becoming the undaunted resolution of a Lover; yea more, I can change it into a complete Felicity, if you will but vouchsafe me your assistance; I know no way to revenge my Husbands cruelty, but to deserve it by acting what he so much fears. Help me their to meet and embrace my Lover, that he who hath so kindly entertained my invitation, so justly observed our appointment, may neither accuse me of breach of faith, nor want the reward due to his Fidelity. Let your courteous hands untie the knots that hamper mine, and for a few minutes free me from these bonds, that I may really deserve them. these charms soon wrought upon the good nature of the Bawd, who was the very Renet of Concupiscence; so that she readily disengaged her Daughter from the could embraces of the Pillar.  
Who being thus happily at liberty, assumes more Courage and Wit from her adventure; and falls to persuade her deliverer to suffer her self to be bound with the same Cord, and to supply her room only while she hasted to her Gallant; to give him an assurance of her constancy; she  told her, there could be no hazard in the enterprise, since her Husband was in his bed and fast asleep, and all the world but themselves at quiet, and within two minutes she would return and relieve her: Hereto she added such golden promises, as might have overcome a mind much more obstinate and doubtful than the Bawds, who boggled at no danger to oblige a friend; but accordingly shifting her Mantle( some will have it to be only a Blanket) from her own shoulders to the Matrons; readily yielded her self to be bound to the Pillar, in the same manner as she had found her Predecessor. This certainly was a most pleasant Scene, well worthy a Theatre, and might make a good plot for a Tragicomedy. The Matron leaving her Deputy thus bound and naked, yet without impeachment of her modesty; and mounting on the wings of love, fled in an instant to her Paramour: 'twas a bold and adventurous Act this, for a Woman so lately surprised, so cruelly treated, so miraculously delivered; nay, not yet delivered from danger of greater torments, and perhaps of death; thus to throw her self into the Arms of her Adulterer, to force, even destiny itself to give way to the satisfaction of her desires. But Love inspires Audacity and Contempt of all perils into the Weakest and most timorous hearts.  
Hardly had the greedy Matron with silence expressed her joy, and tasted the first dish of Loves Banquet, Kisses, a dish that doth at once satisfy and provoke the Appetite; when the Soldier, deceived by the Mantle she had borrowed, and mistaking her for the true owner thereof, began to put her from him, as scorning to use his Arms against so base and impudent an Enemy; but she soon guessing at the cause of his aversion, by her harmonious voice, which yet she durst not raise above a whisper, convinced him of his error, and restored him to a due assurance, that he had the person he looked for, and no Changeling: Whereupon, omitting all further ceremonies, he did his devoir to verify the good opinion she had at first sight, when he was bathing himself, conceived of his good parts; and she, on the other side( if at least there were now any distinction of sides) did hers, to fix him in a confidence, that her Love was true and unfeigned.¶  
While these our zealous votaries to the Goddess of Pleasures, are at their silent devotions; the silly cuckolded,( now I think we may call him so) her Husband, who is an example of that Sentence in Seneca, that many times, by seeking to avoid dangers, we run headlong into the midst of them, was in a slumber, wherein his perturbed imagination presented to him dismal and infaust visions: he dreamed that he saw his wife sacrificing her honour, and doing that odious Act, that drew an indelible slain and reproach upon him and his whole Family; having broken her bonds asunder, and mixing her self with her armed Adulterer in closest embraces; that himself, while he was labouring to revenge the contumelious injury, was transformed into a satire: The horror of this ominous dream interrupting his slumber, and his Fancy retaining a deep impression of those dire phantasms; he begins to believe his transformation to be real, and feels his Nose, if it were not grown crooked like a Satyr's; his Forehead, if it were not armed with Antlers; his Thighs, if they were clothed with shaggy hair; his feet, if they were not cloven, and his Toes turned into hoofs; then still credulous of the first part of his vision, he leaps out of his bed, throws open the window, and calls aloud upon his wife, who was now either out of hearing, or not a● leisure to give answer to his curses and reproaches; But alas! the Reverend Bail, her Confident, heard and trembled; she now, though too late, found the error of her kindness, and saw no way to safety but by obstinate silence, which she with more resolution and constancy kept, than one of Pythagoras Scholars during his novitiate, in spite of the ingeminated exclamations of the enraged Malbecco, who exasperated by that Contempt( for so he understood it) and fancying some Divine suggestions to revenge from the Genius of the Marriage-bed, snatches up a Razor that lay in the Window, runs down the Stairs in the dark, and flying most furiously at the very face of his wifes Deputy, catches her fast by her Nose, and with one well-guided slash cuts it quiter off, then flinging the same in her face; Thou worst of Women, saith he, worthy of a greater brand of infamy, there, take that token of my hate, and sand it for a present to thy Adulterer; who perhaps will either grow more enamoured upon this change of thy form, this new-modell'd face; or confess thee to have a better Title to his love by thy sufferings for his sake. Thus insulting over the miserable wretch, and triumphing in his revenge, he returns to his thorny bed, there with sleep to ease his head, now in truth much heavier than before: What shall I say of the poor mangled and noseless Bawd? only this; that her fear of a worse accident, if she were known to her Tormentor; made her undergo her pains and loss with more than a Spartan patience: Unhappy friendship! sad Exchange! it was her lot to be drenched with the gull of Love, while the Matron sucked the Honey of it: her evil destiny to be besmeared with her own blood, while the more guilty wife was anointed with the Butter of Joy. Thus in Duels, we see, often the seconds are wounded, while the Principals remain unhurt.  
The Schismatical Nose was scarcely grown could, when our Faustina, having finished her first trial of skill with her Gladiator, and with a thousand parting kisses dismissed him to recruit his spirits lost in the conflict, returns with the joys of a double victory to her Post. But, how short-lived a thing is sensual delight! how evanid are all our triumphs! when she understood the sufferings of her Martyr, the Sun-shine of her content was in a moment darkened with clouds of grief and d●eadful apprehensions, and all her exulting smiles exchanged for tears and dejection of Mind. But Grief and Fear, are almost as bad Counsellors as Love, which our witty Matron well understanding, and remembering withal, that Nature had furnished her whole Sex with a faculty of quick invention, how to evade approaching danger, and to conceal faults; re-assures her self, and sets her brain on work how to palliate this wound, which was past her cure. She hath recourse, therefore, to the Art of Consolation, and endeavours to mitigate the Bawds dolours with an Anodyne of kind and commiserating language. She b●ds her not to be cast down with her misfortune, which, carried with bravery and discretion, might turn to her advantage, and prove a noble experiment of her Fidelity among all the Cimmerians; that the segment of her Nose would be to Venus an offering as grateful and propitiatory, as locks of hair to other Deities; that if in a Soldier wounds in the face were honourable witnesses of his courage and bravery; why should not those received in the service of Venus be likewise accounted marks of Gallantry and a daring spirit? that though the now mortified Nose could not be set on again( for Tagliacotius lived a great way off Cimmeria) yet the wound would be easily cured; and at worst, if she were so foolish to resolve not to live without one( a thing many a person of greater quality had done before her) she would cause a new one to be made for her of much more value, and better mettal than the first. This last promise mollified more than all the consolatory reasons precedent, and the Bawd( who had a Soul so abject and Mercenary, that she would for Money have sold her eyes, and ears too into the bargain) becomes pacified and comforted therewith; then being loosed from the Pillar, and binding the Matron( who desired it) to the same; she gropes out the piece of her Nose, wraps it up in a corner of her Mantle, and away she trudges in quest of a Chirurgeon; locking the back door very carefully after her, and reflecting upon the ill success of her obligation.¶.  
King Salomon reckoning Conies among the four sorts of Animals, that being little, are yet exceeding wife; saith of them, that being a generation not strong, they make holes for themselves among the Rocks. The same may be said of Women, who wanting strength to assert their faults, yet have cunning enough to hid them; they make burrows of excuses, and run into them, when in danger to be taken: Like Statesmen, who have for their Impress a Glass Bee-hive, with this Motto, Nulli patet opus; they do their business in the dark, or,( as a witty Italian expresseth it) desmienten lo transparente con un vanna de cera, they smear over their Hives with wax, so that no eye can prie into the secrets of their workings, or be able to trace them in their amorous stealths; if you doubt of this, you shall see it verified in the fourth Act of this our Tragicomedy, which we are now arrived at.  
The Bawd being handsomely conjured away, the cost clear, and all the world at rest; our subtle Matron, after a short meditation, hath found out a way, if it succeed, not only to dissemble her joyful Treason, but to appear still innocent and faithful to her Husband; yea, yet farther, to invert the guilt upon him, and bring him at last to confess himself to have been in an error. This, you'l say, is somewhat difficult: but, remember she is a woman and in Love; and then you'l conceive it to be facile. Having formed the design, she delays not to put it in execution; Counterfeiting therefore, an appeal to the Moon( then newly risen above the verge of the Horizon) with a voice raised by degrees from a low whisper to a pitch high enough to reach the poor Cuckolds ears, she invocates her help and protection, in such verses as these.  

Sister of Jove, Queen Regent of the night,  
From whom the meaner Stars derive their light;  
Or wouldst be worshipped by great Juno's name,  
Joves Wife, or Sister, thou art still the same.  
That sovereign Dame, who art the Deity  
as wedlock rites and female Chastity.  
Why with auspicious Omens did I pay  
My Nuptial vows upon my Marriage day?  
If with an unconcerned and even face  
Thou dost behold the Mischiefs of this place.  
And you bright Planets, Heavens unerring eyes,  
With which by night, he things on earth descries;  
You witnesses of my pure innocence,  
( Who yet, as Judges, my hard fate dispense)  
Don't you grow dim with horror, thus to see  
A jealous Husbands causeless cruelty?  
See, naked, bound, and mangled here I groan,  
And expiate offences not my own.  
If then the virtuous you can thus torment,  
For these rewards, who would be innocent?   

Methinks, I now seem but my own pale Ghost;  
Beauty and famed( a Womans soul) are lost.  
Though pure from Thought, or Act, yet wretched I,  
Must wear a face, that gives my heart the lye.  
Why live I thus? why does this mangled shape  
Confine that soul, which would so fain escape?  
To die is better, and one blow to give,  
Than robbed of Honour, nay and Beauty, live.  
To die is best indeed; but, oh, the hands,  
That should perform my freer Wills commands,  
Alas, are fettered!—  
For death, when courted, from us then to fly,  
Forcing to live, 'tis then he makes us die.   

Ah, cruel Man! here thou hast torments found  
Beyond these bonds, beyond this horrid wound.  
Happy Lucretia, since thou couldst attest  
Thy innocence, by piercing of thy breast;  
Whilst thus expiring in thy Husbands arms,  
even in thy death couldst gain more powerful charms.  
Thou Chast art called, because thou couldst but die,  
Whilst death to me doth that relief deny.   

Thou Goddess wert severe unto thy Jove,  
And heaven couldst purge from his unlawful love:  
If to bad Women thou so just art known,  
Wilt thou not vindicate one honest one?  
Behold with pity, and do not despise  
Tears mixed with blood, which flow from mournful eyes.  
Punish the jealous Man, and make him feel  
The sad effects of his own cruel steel;  
show him his crime, and what 'tis let him know,  
T'offend a Woman, and a Goddess too.  
At least be just, and my late form restore  
With my lost famed, or let me be no more.   
Having breathed forth this supplication in a languishing tone, and made it seem more pathetical by interposing now and then a profound sigh or two( and indeed of all our Passions none are more easily counterfeited then Zeal and Sorrow) on a sudden changing the key of her voice into a confused murmur, and then to that of a civil conference, she dissembled a familiar Dialogue with the Deity, whose aid she had newly implored: and in fine, as if her prayer had been heard, and her petition miraculously granted, with an elevated voice she makes an Apostrophe to her Husband, exclaiming against his improsperous tyranny in these words.  
He, thou most barbarous of men, thou F●ry in human shape, thy bloody rage against thy chastest r●ife hath proved thy own undoing. The mercy of the Celestial Powers hath overcome thy Cruelty, lest my virtue might suffer by thy undeserved and base: suspicious. Now shalt thou be forced to confess, what thy impiety made thee doubt of, that I am innocent, and that There is a God who sees and notes our deeds. I am convinced, I am convinced; it is none but Juno, Protectress of conjugal Chastity, who compassionating my sufferings, hath by Miracle restored that amiable form of mine, which thou, distracted with jealousy, hadst destroyed. go then, desperate Villain, and sheathe that bloody knife of thine in thy own inhuman bowels; that so unworthy a wretch may no longer enjoy the happiness of so faithful and spotless a Wise. Having obtained so signal a favour from the immortal Gods, well may I contemn and bid defiance to the anger of a Mortal Man, especially one so wicked, so degraded by his crimes.— O night! more illustrious than the brightest day. O hour! more fortunate than that of my birth.— Now flow on, flow on officious Tears, but from a different passion. But, thou, execrable Hangman, sacrilegious Thief, hasten hither to be convinced of my purity, and thy crime; make hast, I say, that, if it be possible, thou mayst make atonement for the innocent blood thou hast spilled, and for the sacrilege thou hast committed, and so in time appease the wrath of an offended Goddess.¶  
This triumphant Harangue arriving at the ears of the poor Cornuto, her Husband( whom disquiet of mind kept from sleep) it alarmd all his Faculties, and put him into so great a confusion, that giving but little credit to his sense, he lay a good while considering the probability of what he heard. At first he thought it an Illusion( since to Nature it is much easier to make a man dream impossibilities, than to effect them) and began therefore to feel if his Eyes were open, that he might thereby be certified, whether he were awake, or not. Then finding it to be no dream, and hearing his Wife continue her Speech, and denouncing a deluge of dire Judgments against him; his rage and jealousy began at once to give place to as vehement Fear and Remorse. Rising therefore hastily from his bed, and lighting a candle, down he goes, resolved to make his eyes judges of the truth of what he durst not believe upon the single testimony of his ears. Arrived at the fatal Pillar, the scene of such prodigious accidents, and beholding his Wifes face attentively, he found it perfect, and without the least sign of hurt, nay not so much as stained with a drop of blood; and her hands still tied as he had at first left them. Whereat astonished, and persuaded in himself, that so supernatural an event, as the restauration of a Nose cut off, could not come to pass but by power Divine; he sunk down into an abhorrence of his wicked fact, and of the no less abominable motive thereof, his jealousy; dreading withall some dire punishment from the just anger of the Gods. Then casting himself upon the pavement, in token of his sorrow and contrition, he washes out the bloody stains thereof with penitential tears. Which done, he kneels in adoration of so manifest a Miracle, and in humble but fervent prayers, begs pardon first of Heaven, then of his Wife( too wise to be inexorable) for the horrid effect of his outrageous Passion. Which when she, good Soul, had graciously promised upon a solemn vow of reformation of Manners on his part, transported with joy, he unties the cord, sets her at liberty, kisses her all over, and leads her to bed, there to seal his reconciliation to her, now a rare Example of unspotted Chastity. Thus, blessed be the God of Love! Our witty Matron, hath at once recovered three most precious things, her Nose, her Honour, and her Husbands Love.  
Not long after this happy conclusion or Catastrophe, the Bawd, well rewarded with a purse of money for her loss and feeresy, and hoping to mend her fortunes by removing to a place of better trading; packs up her baggage, and marches away to the Court of Comus, King of the Cimmerians: where she now lives no small Favourite, and exercising her talent every day, in laying new designs, and managing the close intrigues of Love betwixt Ladies and their Gallants. Wherein long practise hath made her so excellent, that if any Woman in that Court, be she Maid, Wife, or Widow, please you; and if you commit the matter to her contrivement and intercession: you need not doubt the success.  
As for the soldier, though my Author says no more of him, but what I have recounted; yet, considering that he was a man of honour, a Son of Mars, it is not to be doubted, but that he continued secret and faithful to his Venus. Nor is it less probable that She, a gracious and obliging Mistress, continued to love him better, than she did her Usurer, notwithstanding her remission of his cruel usage, and readmission of him to her grace and favour. Whereupon I cannot at any time reflect, without acknowledging the goodness o● Pr●serpine, in keeping her promise mad● to the Lady May in Chaucer; which was this, in her answer to Pluto, who would fain restore to January, her Husband, his sight, that he might see his Esquire, Damian, making him cuckolded in a Pear-tree.  

You shall( quoth proserpina) and well ye so?  
Now by my Mothers Soul, Sir, I swear,  
That I shall yeven her sufficient answer,  
And all women after for her sake;  
That though they ben in any guilt itake,  
With face bold, they shullen hemselve excuse,  
And bear hem down, that would hem accuse.  
For lack of answer, non of hem shull dien,  
All had he say a thing with both his eyen:  
Yet should we women so visage it hardly,  
And weep, and swear, and chide subtelly;  
That men shall ben as lewd as geese.  
What recketh me of your auctoritees, &c.   

Explicit Historia,& sequuntur Mysteria Amoris,    

THE Mysteries and Miracles OF LOVE.  

SECT. I.  
LOVE is a guest sooner entertained, than perceived; and yet sooner perceived than known, and much easier known than understood; better understood, than defined or described. As if it challenged only the Heart for its proper apartment, and disdained any remove up into the Brain: as if it took delight to be felt not shown: as if being possessed the recesses of the heart, it feared to be ejected thence, if it once came near the Tongue. Like Holy Writ, it admits of no Interpreter but itself: not do we come to know it by either precepts or examples; but by Infusion. You may affirm safely, that Cupid is not only blind, but also dumb: making all parts of the body vocal, except the tongue. Hence it is, that Lovers are more eloquent in their sighs than in their words, as if no messengers were so fit to convey their sentiments, as their vital breath: and like Paphian Doves, they groan forth living Epistles. Nay, they discourse together silently by the rhetoric of their fingers, and wove dialogues in Chaplets. By affable nods, and darted smiles, the vocal Ambassadors of desire, they treat about their union; and red each others Soul in glances. Their colloquys, like those of Angels, are made by intuition: and they express themselves also, like them, not by the Intellect, but the Will.  
obliqne intuens ind nutibus—  
Nutibus mutuis inducens in errorem mentem pvellae:  
Et illa contra nutibus mutuis juvenis  
Leandri, quod amorem non renuit, &c.  
is Musaeus his description of the Eye-parly between Leander and Hero. Sometimes fixing their wandring countenances, as upon strangers, while they openly decline and renounce acquaintance, they become secretly familiar. Sometimes their contracted brows threaten displeasure; but at the same time they contract them with such sweetness, that they rather invite than discourage; and their very frowns are obliging. Sometimes their Souls interchangeably sally forth at their Eyes, and steal kisses at a distance; and then return home again triumphing in their invisible thefts. Thus both sides gain, yet neither loses; both lose and both gain. Their chief aim is, to be surprised: and yet their chief pleasure and glory is, not to be perceived. Thus that which is so often brought into the Theatre, flies all spectators, and acts in its own person. These Divine Confabulators, as if placed above the laws of sense, by most certain Auguries divine each others wishes, and search each others heart without dissecting the breast. They are a kind of Seers, that behold the desires of their Correspondent, as it were spectres; which like Catoptrical Images, are not perceived but by the same art, that created them: or, like the Deities of old issuing from their Statues, they inspire the person, to whom they speak; as if two Minds met to animate one Body, and conversed together with no less silence, than one uses to converse with itself alone. Of all our affections, this alone knows not to be expressed; and the sacred rites thereof( as those of the most ancient Gods of the Heathen) are performed in the dark. Though the passion be of itself innocent, yet it is always conjoined with secret shane: and the same blushes that betray our flamme, strive to hid it.  
Alterno facies sibi dat responsa rubore,  
Et tener affectum prodit utrique pudor;  
as that merry-conceited Arnulphus, Episcopus Lexoviensis, hath well expressed in a facete Epigram of his. Every Love hath its Flammeum, as well as Hymen: and at the Elusinean sacrifices both sexes are veild. All the Votaries of Venus, as well as her darling Aeneas, walk surrounded with clouds; and they frequent even public theaters invisibly. Nay Cupid himself, not contented with a single Veil, contrives also Ambushes for more secrecy: and oftener takes in Hearts by stratagem and surprise, than by storm. Thus He that composed and maintains the World in order, left himself in confusion; dwelling in a retreat of the ancient darkness, and primitive Chaos.¶.   

SECT. II.  
HIs Mother too avoids the light ever since he was born; as being as much ashamed of his childish treacheries, as offended with the Sun, for discovering her in the arms of Mars. She obscures her self in a Labyrinth, and admits no Eye to pry into her Closet: nay, in her chiefest solaces she uses to shut her own eyes, as being jealous lest they should discover too much of her divinity. She is the true Sphinx, that subdues and destroys by a Riddle: more, she makes every man a Riddle to himself, while being by contrary passions agitated, and hurried up and down by the flux and reflux of his own violent thoughts, he at once finds himself a Captive, and strives to be a Conqueror. And this the capricious Lad, her Son, assists her to effect; that we poor Mortals may believe, she was begotten betwixt the winds and waves in a Tempest. No wonder then, if Love seem enigmatical and full of contradictions. It is not easily intelligible, how the same person can at the same time both serve and be free; have all his Faculties devoted to the pleasure of another, and yet preserve the command of his own Will; make an absolute resignation of himself, and yet pretend not only to Liberty, but to Dominion: and yet Love doth soon reconcile these repugnances; and bring his Subjects to govern by obedience, teaching them, like the Freedmen of some Roman Emperours, obsequii titulo Dominis imperare, to rule their sovereigns will by observance of it, and alter their counsels by obsequiousness and complacency.  
Nor is it less difficult to conceive, that one can die, and instantly revive again; yea, be alive and dead at once; or, like the Phoenix, build his own both funeral and vital fire, out of which he reassumes a more vigorous and Youthful Being, than what the flames consumed. Yet nothing is more frequent among Lovers; whom the miraculous chemistry of Love, by a most pleasant Palingenesis, restores from their ashes to their primitive state and form.  
A man would think at first, that no two things in Nature are more incompatible, more inconsistent, more reciprocally destructive, than those two contrary Passions, Love and Hate; the former causing sweet and agreeable motions in the spirits, and blood, and fibres of the Heart; the later, unequal, harsh and offensive ones: the one tending to Complacency and union; the other to Abhorrence and Flight: the one aiming at the Felicity, the other at the Destruction of its Object: but upon a second and more serious consideration of the matter, he shall find, that in the breast of even the most ardent and refined Inamourato these two so professed Enemies are become not reconciled, but Twins, and those too not such as Castor and Pollux, rising and setting alternately, but like Lazarus and his Brother, growing together, so that one is not only an individual Companion, but also an Appendix, or rather an integrant part of his fellow. For, the Servant always wishes his Mistress less Happy than she is, that so his affection may appear more pure, more sincere, and determined upon her Person alone. Is she wise and discreet; He presently reproaches the Stars, that favoured her with so strong a defence; as conceiving, that if her Brain were less sound, her Heart would be more tender, and that if she had less wit, himself would be less subject to her Contempt. Is she in Health, He secretly invocates Jove to afflict her with Sickness, that he may have that occasion to demonstrate his grief, his tenderness, his sympathy. Is she Rich, He cannot forbear to wish her in Want, that he might endow her with his Fortune. Is she at Liberty, He longs to see her a Captive, that he may merit her favour by hazarding all in her redemption. Is her famed clear and immaculate; how glad would he be some licentious tongue would defile her Honour, that he might wash away the stains, though with his blood. Is her Birth and Quality noble; he would fain degrade her, that she might derive all her Dignity from the Generosity of his Love. In a word, in some sort or other He wishes her Miserable, that he may have the glory to relieve her, and that her own Necessity may draw, rather than his Courtship and Observance invite her to his embraces. He had rather be her Sanctuary, than her Conqueror. Now is not here a certain Malignity mixed with Benevolence; Zeal tempered with Hate; Inhumanity proceeding from excess of Kindness; Cruelty conjoined with the greatest Charity? Yet such is the Constitution of Love. Cupid has no darts headed with pure Gold. What God soever made and tippd his Shafts, served him as the {αβγδ}( as Rivaltus calls him) the treacherous Artist did Hiero, King of Syracuse in casting his Crown, put in a great deal of Copper among the Gold. Which is perhaps one reason why the wounds of Lovers are so painful and apt to fester; it being the nature of Brass to ulcerate and breed Cancers. I think it therefore no blasphemy against the so much adored Divinity of Love, to affirm, that it always hath some alloy of that Devil, Malice: and that no Man love's without Indignation. Especially when I reflect upon this, that the torments he suffers cannot but force him even against his will to execrate his fair Tormentor; to be angry with the Thief, that robbed him of himself; to wish that bright flamme obscured or extinct, that burns his wings, though, like the foolish Butterfly, he at the same time ceases not to flutter about it, and ( as a Modern Wit finely expresses it) beate frui necis autore, to enjoy his Murderer. Nor is it the poor neglected and despised Lover, that alone hath reason to complain of, and reproach his Mistress; even the most prosperous and triumphant feels disquiet and anguish enough to cause Regret, which is a kind of Anger.  
— Dolor, querelae,  
Lamentatio, lachrymae perennes,  
Languor, anxietas, amaritudo,  
Aut si trust magis potest quid esse,  
Hos tu das comites Naeera vitae;  
was the complaint of a Lover in Plautus, even after victory: and Poets themselves, none of the severest censurers of this Heroic passion, call it suavem amariciem, dolentiam delectabilem, hilare tormentum. Nay, old Plautus so far condemned it, as he could not hold from crying out, Credo ego, ad hoins carnificinam Amorem inventum esse. If Love then be so full of gull and anxiety, who can suffer it without secret detestation? who without reflecting upon the Author of his perturbations with displeasure and offence. Certainly the most gentle, the most patient, the sweetest temper, when urged and provoked by these inward gripes and pangs, will hardly be able to refrain from exclaiming, with Phaedria in Terence 
— O Thais, Thais! utinam esset mihi.  
Pars aequa amoris tecum; ac pariter fieret,  
Ut aut hoc tibi doleret itidem, ut mihi dolet,  
Aut ego istuc abs te factum nihili penderem.   
What's more common among Lovers, than thus to wish their torments transplanted from their own into their Mistresses breast? and is not that to curse them? which the most savage nature would not do without indignation. It was not without good reason then, that Aristotle( 2 Rhetor.) placed Love in the Irassible part of the Soul; nor is it out of affectation of being Paradoxical, but Zeal to Truth, that I have here asserted, That no man can Love without indignation, which will appear somewhat more perspicuous, if we consider, that indignation is always accompanied with either Commiseration or Irrision. For, to do evil, is in some sort to suffer evil; and therefore some men, when they observe any one to do evil, join to their indignation against, a Commiseration for the doer, while others on the same occasion, mix Irrision with their Indignation; according as they stand well or ill affencted to the person doing amiss; so that the laughter of Democritus, and the weeping of Heraclitus might proceed from one and the same cause; and Commiseration, which is a degree of Love, may go hand in hand with Indignation.   

SECT. III.  
ANother of Loves Problems is this; that the most happy Lovers find their very enjoyments unsatisfactory, their joys insincere. To them it is difficult, to love; not to love, more difficult; most difficult to be possessed of what they love. Be the Saint never so propitious, never so obliging; still the votary continues his supplications, his importunity, and not contented with all she can grant, or he receive, he seeks for more. The miserable Mind is afflicted no less with the success, than with the vehemence of its desires; and like the Misers, continues poor in the midst of Wealth; after a feast it riseth empty, retaining that sweet torment, suspirare& cupere. As if they had as little use of their Memory, as of their Reason and Will, forgetting the shortness, the emptiness of past enjoyments, they furiously hunt after more. Memoriae minimum tribuit, quisquis spei plurimum. Every one puts a higher value upon his Hopes, than upon his Attainments. As their desires so afflict, that they at the same time please and delight, so their joys are infested with such calamities, that they excruciate. Here( if you please) let us stand a minute or two, and consider how this can be. The passion of Joy( you know) always follows upon a rickling of the senses by some agreeable object; and its contrary Grief, upon the offence and grating of them: and yet Grief may sometimes be sustained with joy; and there are, on the other side, some certain titillations that offend. But the true reason why Joy ariseth for the most part from titillation, I conceive to be this; that the pleasure of all sensation consisteth in the Objects causing in the Nerves and Brain some motion, which might violate and hurt them, in case they were not firm and tense enough to resist it; This resistance makes upon the centre of the brain an impression, which being instituted by Nature, to signify and a●test the good constitution and strength of the Nerves, represents the same to the Soul as a Good pertaining to her, so far forth at least, as she is conjoined to the Body; and by that means excites joy in her; the same reason serves also to explain, why naturally it is pleasant to every man, to feel himself commoved to all sorts of Passions, yea even to sadness and hatred, when those Affections arise only from the various events represented in theaters, or other the like subjects, wherein he is not concerned. Which, because they can no way harm us, seem to tickle the soul by touching her. And Pain ordinarily produceth Grief, because that offence of the sense, which is called Pain, ariseth from some Action so violent, as to hurt the Nerves: of which the soul instantly becoming sensible, looks upon it as an Evil extending to her also, and thereupon is affencted with Grief; unless in some such cases, where she is strongly diverted by expectation of a greater Good from that Evil. As Martyrs have exulted in their torments, not that they were insensible of them, but because their souls were possessed with a confident hope that those short pains would produce eternal pleasures.  
Upon this consideration perhaps, or some other not much different from it, it was, that Seneca thus expostulates with his dear Lucilius, about his immoderate sorrow for the death of their common Friend, Flaccus( Epist. 63.) Quaeris unde lamentationes, unde immodici fletus? per lachrymas argumenta desiderij quarimus:& dolorem non sequimur, said ostendimus, nemo tristis sibi est. est aliqua& doloris ambitio. The sum whereof is this, that we find a certain pleasure in Grieving; and that that pleasure is grounded upon Ambition( which is nearly allied to Love) to make it known to others, how well we loved that for which we grieve. To bring all this to our present argument. You see then, that Joy and Grief are no {αβγδ}, no incompatible Passions, no such Enemies but that sometimes at least they may dwell together in one breast. If so, why may not the Joys of Lovers be commixed with Grief? why may not their Fruitions be unsatisfactory? I could fill a whole page. with the names of such, whose flames raged more by extinction, and whose love was so far from languishing, that it grew more strong and violent by the possession of its object. Cupid is the son of Venus, you know: and nursed by his Mothers Milk; and our friend Chaucer therefore wisely fixes the epoch of Aeneas and Dido's love on the jubilee they celebrated in the Cave, whither the tempest of Thunder and Lightning had forced them to retreat.  
And shortly fro the Tempest her to save;  
This noble queen fled into a Cave.  
And with her went this Aeneas also;  
I wot not, with them if there went any mo.  
The author maketh of it no mention.  
And here began the deep affection  
Betwixt hem two. this was the first morrow  
Of her gladness, and ginning of her sorrow;  
The Reason is, that the Lover, appre●ending no fruition total, no possession ●ntire, supposeth some further good in ●he object, than what his former enjoy●ent made him acquainted withall: nor ●oth he propose to himself merely a ●ontinuation of the Good he hath en●y'd; because whoever wisheth the con●inuation of a Good, considers it not as a ●ing present, but to come, and consequently as a thing which yet he doth not know; for no man can know what is not. So that the wandering Love, which hunts after variety, and the Constant, that is determined and fixed upon one individual object, are twins of the same birth, and have one and the same original: the latter affecting Novelty no less than the former. Here's all the difference; one pursues Novelty in a single person: the other in a multitude: but both are equally insatiate. O infelicem stultitiam! O insaniam voluntariam! what strange infelicity is this voti compotem voto non posse frui, to have, and at the same time to want? The covetous mans curse, is to possess and not enjoy: the Lovers greate● to enjoy and not enjoy; utpote cvi majora, quám quae tota simul indulgeri fas sit● gaudia quaeruntur. The wise man( Ecclesiasticus 30. and 20.) describing th● misery of the one, compares it to th● other: {αβγδ}, ● the Septuagint. he beholds his treasur● with greedy eyes, and sighs, as an E●nuch embraceth a Virgin and sighs, sig● most bitterly. So our Lover sighs, a● enjoys, and still sighs. And to spea● strictly, in this sense Hercules himself, who deflowered fifty Virgins in a night, was but an Eunuch for all that, so we are all, and our Ladies Virgins; we embrace and sigh; still unsatisfied, still coveting, quod nec assequi, nec scire datur, more than the nature of the thing can afford.  
Notwithstanding this imperfection of our chiefest solace, I am so far from accusing Nature of improvidence or unkindness, in making Love of this composition; that on the contrary, I judge it to be an argument of her Wisdom and Indulgence. Because our pleasure is endeared by its being incomplete; and our appetite would soon be turned into loathing, if once satiated. {αβγδ}; is a maxim of the Indian Gymnosophist, in his speech to Alexander the Great, re●orded by Palladius de Bragmanibus, not long since set forth by the learned Knight Sir Edward Bisse, Clarenciux King at Arms. To this purpose it was ●ost elegantly said by a modern Wit, ●riting upon the same subject; huic af●ectui sollicitè, prospexit Numen, dum ●udio immiscuit tremorem& sollicitudinem, ut delicatior exiret voluptas. All desire indeed, is grounded upon want, and want implies imperfection: yet the desire whereof we are now speaking, being mostly an effect of fullness, hath such a {αβγδ}, such a complacentia annexed to it, that few complain of it as an imperfection. Nor are there many of Plato's mind in this particular, who( as Marsilius Ficinus in his life) thought it enough only once to sacrifice to Nature. Most are as much pleased to possess this desire, as to satisfy it: yea, to speak freely, the desire is itself some satisfaction; aequali voluptate afficiunt,& quod adest jam,& quod futurum speratur; nam dulcis desiderii dens interim mordet,& dum periculum facis, speras; was the merry Lucians saying to his Theomnestes in {αβγδ} And I am apt to believe, it was upon this very motive, that Luther openly professed, that without the consolatiuncula creaturulae he could not live contented.   

SECT. IV.  
YEt more Aenigmata, more perplexing Difficulties in Love. This Affection, which composeth all other commotions of the soul, which reconciles Men, wild Beasts, and Philosophers, is yet at variance with itself; being founded upon a discordant connexion of unlike and asymbolical natures, it maintains its power by a civil war; and, like some pictures, varies its representations according to the different positions of the eye that speculates it, on one hand it carries the aspect of Fear; on the other, of Magnanimity: in one posture it appears Blind; in another, sharp-fighted; here a Fool; there Wise, &c. so that its picture cannot be drawn in one Image: and the spectator may easily be mistaken in its lines and features. To be particular.  
When you see a languishing Lover, whose arms seem so tender and delicate, that you think them fit only for embraces; who exhales nothing but odours or sighs; who is strook down with the contraction of a brow, and wounded to the heart with the disdainful glance of an eye: take heed notwithstanding, how you reproach him as a soft, effeminate and pusillanimous person. For, really he is hardy, daring and adventurous; he repines not at the tediousness or could of nightly vigils; he inures himself to difficulties; like Caesar posting from Rome into Germany, he despises the obstacles of the Alps, of frost and snow and overflowing rivers; he exercises his fortitude with submissively undergoing accumulated injuries; he defies dangers, nay, makes it a pleasure to create them in his imagination, and is gratified with the encounter of adverse accidents, as favours to his zeal, and arguments of his devotion, he neglects not only dress, but health; and, like Candidates for St. Peters chair, or the Dukedom of Venice, thinks it advantageous to look faint, pale and meager.  
Nor ought you to accuse him of Stupidity, though you observe him to suffer Contempts and Affronts from his proud Stratonice, without just resentment. For, he( be you well assured) is wholly transmigrated into soul, become all spirit, retreated into that etherial particle of Fire, which is impassable, and can not be touched. If this seem less credible, be pleased to consider, it is the Religion of Love to overcome evil with good, to extinguish the fire of malice by the brighter flamme of Charity; the Philosophy of this endearing Passion, to subdue hatred by submission and obsequiousness. Besides, our good-natured Gallant entertains, neglects& scorn, not with insensibility, but discretion: as well understanding, that injuries as they fade and die of themselves, when bravely despised; so they pass into Benefits, when received with gentleness and humanity. A flint is broken on a feather-bed.  
Will you charge him with Blindness, because he discerns not the defects, the spots of his Mistress; but takes these for stars, and those for ornaments; and by a most obliging error gilds over her faults with the title of the nearest virtues? Herein certainly you are no equal Arbiter. You require a Censor, not a Lover; and in the place of true affection, you expect a severe judgement. It is a sign of ill-nature in you, thus to envy him the pleasure of an error, wherein he thinks himself more happy. Is it not lawful for him to impose upon himself by such innocent fraud? to form in his mind a more august image of her, whom he is resolved to contemplate and adore? we account it an excellency in a Painter, to make his pieces fairer than the Originals; and among the many praises deservedly ascribed to our incomparable Mr. Lely, this is not the least, that his curious pencil can at pleasure not only follow the finest lines of Nature, but sweeten them; at once both imitate and excel the life. Why then do you condemn the same in a Lover? it is indeed an excess in both; of Art in one; of Affection in the other: and, in my opinion, equally commendable. Imagination is unconfined even by Nature: and the very Extravagances thereof in love have been approved by Venus herself, in that she infused warmth and life into Pygmalions Eburnea. That, you'll say was a fiction: yet the Mythology may serve to justify our Inamorato. The life given to that Statue by the Goddess, was no other than the grace and beauty of the Figure, which Appelles, in his Pictures called the Venus; which made it live in the estimation of those times, and admiration of posterity. Lucian's Panthea( in {αβγδ}) likewise, it is probable, was no other than an Imaginary or Romantique Lady, made up of all the rare ideas of Beauty, and admirable endowments of mind, whereof human nature is capable; for, his best Interpreters are at a loss in their conjectures, what divine Princess that was, whose glorious perfections he designed to celebrate under the veil of that Name: yet even learned and grave men are so highly pleased with the description and Character, that they equally admire his Wit, and her accomplishments, and scarcely abstain from rivalling him in both. If such admiration then, and applause be due to Lucian's Fancy; why do you deride that of our Inamorato, who thereby endeavours to form to himself such another Panthea? If he deceive himself, 'tis to his own misfortune, not your prejudice; yet how can we call that a misfortune, which he( the best judge in the case) esteems a Felicity?  
But all this while the Dimness seems to be in your Understanding, not in his sight. His eyes are not put out, but only covered with a thin veil, through which they see more securely, more clearly; as we behold the Sun best through a screen of clouds. You are to imagine them only contracted, as those to take aim, that they may discern more accutely and distinctly. Being fixed upon one object, and that a bright and charming one, they do not indeed so plainly perceive other things; yet not that they are weak, but because they loathe them, and will not endure to be diverted: which is not to be dim-sighted, but to see too much. Again, if to Philosophize, be nothing but to contemplate ideas; then to love, is to be a Philosopher. Yea, if every man loves so much as he understands( which was Plato's opinion) then dotage in love is an argument of Science.  
You are too blame, therefore, if you think vehemency of desire to be a sort of Madness; or take our Lover for one Infatuated, only because his actions seem extravagant. Alas! what you call Follies in him, are the Mysteries of a Divine Fury, or Enthusiasm. Love inspires into the Mind a new Faculty of acting by a more certain and compendious way, than that of Ratiocination: all his Reason, like that art by which spiders wove their curious nets, and Bees Govern their Commonwealth, is Instinct. His hand is not guided by the eye, when he shoots at human hearts; but by the Divinity of his Genius: and therefore, though he never takes aim, he never misses the mark.  
Impotens flammis simul& sagittis,  
Iste lascivus puer ac renidens  
Tela quam certo moderatur  
— arcu!  
While we poor mortals regulate our affairs by Reason, which is a laborious faculty, and obnoxious to error; it is the privilege of his Divinity, to be carried on by a quick and most certain {αβγδ}, or force, to all his ends; and, like the Supreme Being, he is wise without deliberation or counsel. It is not then the prerogative of Jove alone, sapere& simul amare, to be wise and to love at once. For if wisdom be, scire quid sit optimum; then certainly a Lover is also wise, because he knows whats best; aliud enim( as Senecca) amare praeter optimum, nefas est. If after all this you will not allow him to be in his wits, pray consider what subtle devices, ambushes, stratagems, and artifices he invents and makes use of, to take in that strong and by open force impregnable fortress of his Mistresses heart. Cast your eye upon those troops of Virgins, that are daily lead Captives, as trophies of their Lovers wit and cunning: all which were of necessity to be deceived, before they could be taken, and by artificial violence to be drawn to their own desires. For, they love more, to be ingeniously beguiled, than to be loved; and the readiest way to bring them into the circled of your embraces, is first to circumvent them with pretty fallaces and amorous treacheries. Now he that can with neat address, unperceived snares, and harmless frauds bring this to pass; either he is no Fool, or I am one to think him otherwise, and so was Virgil when he said— quis fallere posset amantem?& Mantuan, when he said Namque dolos inspirat amor, fraudesque ministrat. Nay, so far is this Passion from darkening the understanding, and casting a mist over the Eye of the Mind, that it rather illuminates and clears it. Witness that pleasant Story in Boccace( which he borrowed from the Greeks, and which Beroaldus hath translated into Latin, and Beblius turned into elegant verse) of Cymon and Ephigenia. This Cymon, the Son of a Governor of Cyprus, was naturally so very a Fool, so stupid an indocil an Ass, that his Father being ashamed of his rude and ideot-like behaviour, sent him to be kept at a remote and solitary Grange of his in the Country. Where he walking alone, as his custom was, by chance espied a beautiful young Gentlewoman, Iphigenia, a Burgomasters Daughter of Cyprus, as she lay fast asleep with her Maid, in the cool shade of a little Thicket, with no envious cover, but a clean transparent Smock, that rather betrayed than concealed her excellent shape and whiter skin. At this surprising vision poor simplo Cymon was astonished; he stood leaning on his staff( for his legs were now unable alone to support his trembling body) gaping on this female Angel, unmovable, and in a trance of wonder and amazement. Upon which Love immediately succeeding, and in a moment with its celestial rays dispelling all the fogs of his could and phlegmatic brain, yea inspiring him as it were with a new and ingenious soul; he rowzd up himself; reflected upon the misery and dishonour of his late condition, and put on a sprightly resolution to pursue his Nymph with Courtship and Gallantry, worthy her admirable Form, and his own noble extraction. To this purpose he the next day followed his retreating Fairy to the City, put on a becoming habit, and with it a graceful and obliging Mine: and animated with hope, industriously employed himself in learning music, dancing, fencing, and acquiring all other good qualities requisite in a Gentleman. So that in a very short time he was transformed from an idiot, a Bartholmew-Cokes, a Clown, to a Bon Esprit, a Virtuoso, a Truwitt, in a word, to the most accomplished Gallant of the times: nor was Iphigenia so invincible to such assaulting perfections, as not by marriage of him to appropriate to her self the fruits of the Miraculous Metamorphosis the vision of her Beauties had wrought in him. Such power hath the sight of a fair Lady naked to cause Love; such power hath Love to cure the Lethargy of the Soul, and awaken it into Wit and gallantry, making a Heros of a sot, in fewer minutes than the Writers of Romances can in years. I say, a Heros; because the same Cymon proved also famous at Arms, fought sundry combats, performed many heroical exploits, and always had Fortune for his Second: the same flamme that enlightened his understanding, having heated his blood also, and kindled Courage and Magnanimity in his heart.  
At this you will the less wonder, if you remember what you have red in Carda●( lib. 2. de Sap.) who there occasionally recounting many of the admirable effects of Love, says thus. Ex vilibus generoses efficer solet, ex timidis audaces, ex avaris splendides, exagrestibus civiles, ex crudelibus mansuetos, ex impiis religiosos, ex sordidis nitidos& cultos, ex duris misericordes, ex mutis eloquentes, &c. If you contemn this authority, I hope you will not dispute the Example of Sir Walter many in Edward the thirds time, who being stuck full of Ladies favours, fought like a Dragon: nor that of Ferdinand King of Spain, who( as Castilio thinks) had never conquered Granado, had not Queen Isabella and her Ladies been present at the Siege, it cannot be expressed, says our Author, what courage the Spanish Knights derived from the rays of the Ladies eyes; a handful of amorous Spaniards overcoming a multude of Moors. Every true Lover is wise, just, temperate and valiant, saith Agatho( lib. 3. de Aulico) who doubts not therefore, but if a Prince had an Army of such Lovers, he might soon conquer the whole world; except he met with the like Army of Inamorato's to oppose it. Plato then had reason, when( 5. de Legibus) he would have women follow the Camp, to be both Spectators and Encouragers of noble Actions: it being his opinion, ( in convivio) that Mars himself borrowed most of his valour from his love of Venus.   

SECT. V.  
HAving beholded this Proteus, Love, in some of those various shapes, wherein it usually appears; you are( I presume) thereupon inclined to think it may be no less unconstant to its Object, than it seems to be to itself. To obviate this scandalous mistake, therefore, I find myself obliged in the next place to evince, that the Judgments of Love are, like those of Fate, unalterable and perpetual; that it is constant and immutable. He who can cease to love whom he hath once loved, does but dream he loved. For the conjunction of true Lovers hearts, like solemn Matrimony, admits of no divorce. When the Virgin Zone is untied, a knot is in the same instant knit, that can never be dissolved; sometimes, indeed, as the Gordian, it may be cut asunder. Death may be the Alexander to discind, but cannot untie it. Love ceases not, though what is loved hath ceased to be. When your Turtle hath molted all her beautiful feathers, and is grown old; you shall not cease to think her still the same, still amiable and youthful: and what of her charming features time hath impaired, your affection will continually renew; the pleasing Form now lost to your eye, shall be perpetually found fresh and lively in your mind. The fidelity of Remembrance shall countervail the cruelty of Age: which may by a natural Metamorphosis render your Wife a stranger to her former self, but hath not the more tyrannical power to alienate her from you. Nay, when Fate shall have torn her from your arms, even then shall you still retain and enjoy her in your imagination; you shall think her not dead, but only absent, and as often as you mix embraces with her kind Ghost, you shall deny her to have perished. Love shall make you triumph over Mortality; and in the ardour of your spiritual fruition, you shall bid defiance to Destiny, crying out, Though you have separated us, O Fatal Sisters! you have not divided us; yet we converse together, yet we are a pair, from others you have taken away the Woman, from me not so much as her shadow. While she lived we used but one Soul; now but one Body. Her Spirit is received into my breast, and there remains fixed, as in its proper Asterism and Heaven.  
Thus Love seems to perform i●s course, as the Sun, in a circled, always returning to the po●nt whence it set forth; so ending in itself, as always to begin. For, no man loves, who can ever be able to love either, less, or not at all. Of love there can be no end, because no satiety. Like Heaven and a contemplative Mind, it is perpetually in motion, never at rest: yet that labour doth not weary, but refresh. Thus the end of one benefit, is a degree toward another: and the Soul provoked by a double ardour, cherishes first the person, and then its own obligations; ad amoris perennitatem sufficit amass.  
Notwithstanding Love be thus immortal, as being the proper affection of an immortal Soul, and devoted to an eternal Object, Good: yet can I not deny, but it is a kind of Death. For, who is ignorant that Lovers die as often as they kiss, or bid adieu: exhaling their Souls upon each others lips. Like Apollo's Priests possessed with the spirit of Divination, they are transported out of themselves; their life is a perpetual ecstasy; they divest themselves of their own Souls, that they may be more happily filled with others. I believe Pythagoras his Metempsychosis or Transmigration of his Soul, when he loved, not when he philosophiz'd. At sight of a fair and well built house, our souls, like delicate and proud Ladies, grow weary of ther own homely dwellings, and are unquiet until removed thither: because they were not born, they affect to live, yea to be born again therein. Longing for the elysium of their Mistress breast, the only Paradise for Lovers Ghosts, they break the prison of their own, and anticipate the delivery of Death, and fly thither, as to the place of their eternal mansion. Whoever thou art, that darest to doubt of these excursions of amorous Souls; let me advice thee attentively to observe, how the Soul of a Lover almost visibly flies to that part of the body, which approaches nearest to his Panthea. If they join hands, you may perceive their souls to be palpably distributed into their fingers, mutually to take hold, and intwine each with other. If they stand side by side, their bowels yern, their hearts leap for joy, their spirits flow in crowds into their breasts, and raising strong palpitations, salute each other, as Clowns use to do, with thumps; as if they striven to dissolve the ligaments of life and intermix embraces. What kind of magic is that, by which the blood is made to overflow the cheeks with crimson waves, at the presence of a dear friend; springing up out of the Arteries of the wounded Heart, as an index of its sufferings, no otherwise than the blood of a murdered man is said to flow forth afresh, to betray the Homicide? only with this difference, that the blood, in the case of Murder, flows, I know not by what instinct, for revenge: but in a Lovers blushes, for cure and remedy of his harm. See, how greedily his soul catcheth the sounds of her voice; and retired wholly into his ears, stands there watching every accent, nay is converted into the sense of Hearing, or rather into the very sounds it receives. In exchanging words, they exchange spirits: and immigrate into the wishes they utter. See, how their wandring souls in a continual efflux sally forth at their encontring eyes; and consuming themselves in greedy looks, leave their bodies faint and lifeless, many times falling into swoons and Sync●pes. To Lovers it is the same thing, to speak, and to expire; the same, to see, and to extramit themselves by the eye; to gaze, and to pass into the object. In them the Platonic opinion, that sight is performed by Extramission of rays holds true. Thus the whole Man hastening to get forth, crowds one while into the Ear, another into the Eye, sometimes into the Lips: suavia dans Agathoni, animam ipse in labra tenebam; was Plato's confession of himself; living only in that part, wherein he at present enjoys his Fellow, his other and better half. Thus Love epitomizeth Human nature; compelling Men to breath and live more contractedly; and( like some imperfect Animals) to be content with one sense alone. But thus to reduce him from a necessity of many Organs or Instruments of life, sense and motion, to a capacity of existing more delightfully by one single Organ; is not to maim Man, but render him more perfect and divine. We will therefore, if you please, conclude this Paragraph with a pertinent Stanza of that incomparable critic in Love, old Chaucer: who in most lively and never-vading colours painting the surprise and astonishmen of Troilus,( till then a Woman-hater) at first sight of the fair Creseide, in her mourning habit, sparkling like a Diamond set in Jet; saith thus.  
Lo, he that let him selven so cunning,  
And scorned hem that loves pains drien,  
Was still unware that love had his dwelling  
Within the subtel streams of her eyen;  
That suddenly him thought he felt dien,  
Right with her look, the spirit in his heart.  
Blessed be love, that thus can folk converte.   

SECT. VI.  
IN such spiritual efforts and sallies, the Body indeed suffers a manifest, though a grateful detriment; but( what's a wonder even for wise men) the soul acquires Augmentation. For, as if she were also definable by Extension, being by a certain expansion more diffused than before, she that was originally the Guest of one breast, becomes thenceforth the Governess of two. Confused betwixt two bodies, she scarcely knows for which she was first formed: but as it were suspended betwixt both, she perfectly informs neither. By one Law of Nature she is confined to one body; by another Law of the same Nature, Love, she is carried forth to animate and possess another, which she strives to make equally her own: so that in this case you are obliged to aclowledge both a Diminution and an Increment of her sovereignty. Every Individual in love, is thenceforth a Number; carrying always with him, as Antipheron did, another Himself: if at least he may properly be said to be a Number, whom one computes, whom one distinguishes, whom the word Homo alone expresses; an Hermaphrodite and yet no Monster. By a fruitful error, to men in Love, as well as to men in Drink, all objects appear double: yet no otherwise than the eyes themselves are double, which have one and the same motion, one and the same sight. Here you see a kind of penetration of Dimensions, two persons so closely embracing, as to fill up the same space, as to become one, as to destroy their embraces; for, embraces imply a difference. While, like Ovids Hermaphrodite, Salmacis, the person courting, and the person courted are one and the same; he knows not whether he love, or is beloved more truly; nor doth he enjoy, but is converted into his wish. Ah, Cupid, thy very bounty is mockery; thy favour, like that of Grandees in Court, hypocritical: while thou hidest within my breast, what I require to be in my arms. Thou art too propitious in making us one: rather divide us, that we may feel ourselves to be what we would be, different in sex, one in will and desire. Obstat cupienti, nimium frui. To have her made the same with myself, whom I covet only as a Partner of my joys, is to prevent them. This excess of kindness, this assimilation of another to myself, makes me think, I do not embrace my Friend, but a shadow; which always treads in my footsteps, and imitates all my motions. Stand farther from me, O my dearest, who art nearer to me than I am to myself; that I may enjoy that pleasure, which consisteth in the knowledge of a Distinction.  
But, alas! I forget myself, and wish a Contradiction. The same power that makes one of two, makes also two of one. The arithmetic of Love is performed aswell by substraction, as by Multiplication: nor do we think that substraction a loss, but a Compendium; unless it be more advantage to have our strengths collected, than extended. Every thing( you know) is so much the more perfect, by how much the more simplo. To be comprehended within no space or number, is the prerogative of the Deity: and what is Best and Highest, can be but one. Love, therefore, as it hath this Divine perfection of Unity; so hath it likewise that other of Self-communication. For, what is perfect, is uncapable of addition or increase otherwise than by Diffusion or Distribution of itself. The only Usury of Love, is to make others rich. This liberality of conferring ones self upon another, is the only good Mankind can justly call his own, and the first Donative of Heaven. Other things are the gifts of Fortune, which we can no more give, than the light of the Sun, of the common aer; nay, which we have scarcely right enough to appropriate to ourselves. Whoever loves, then, comes nearer to the Divine Nature; as placing his chief delight in doing good, in making another happy. Hence it is, that as Men of youthful and strong Bodies are naturally desirous to beget issue of their Loins: so those of great and vigorous abilities of Mind feel in themselves a certain noble ardour, that incites them to beget children of their understanding, a praegnancy of the Brain, and most chased Lust of propagating virtue; which is commonly name platonic Love. Wherefore, Love is, in this respect at least, so far from proceeding from want( as Mr. hobbs derives it) that on the contrary it is the effect of wealth and abundance. Nor ought we longer to complain of Nature, as closehanded and niggardly in her Gifts to Mankind, since she hath been so indulgent and bountiful in instituting this ingenious commerce, whereby every one both communicates himself, and receives another( for, by Love we do not sell, but exchange ourselves) yea transferrs into his own treasury whatever is excellent and divine in another; being adopted heir to anothers riches, he becomes more accomplished by endowment, and in another supplies his own defects. This Munificence of Love in communicating whatever it thinks good and delectable, is evident even in the delight of sensual Fruition, which being a pleasure consisting in a conjunction not only of two Persons of different sexes, but also of two different Appetites in each Person; viz. to please, and to be pleased; and the former of these two Appetites being an Affection of the Mind, consisting in the Imagination of power to please: it necessary follows, that each party becomes so much the more joyed or pleased in himself, by how much the more able he finds him to please or cause joy in the other. So that they rival each other in the Communication of delight. The same may be said also of platonic Love, or generous Charity; the delight whereof consisting likewise in the exercise of ones power or ability to enrich the understanding of another, and impraegnate his Mind with the seeds of Virtue: the Socrates must be so much the more delighted in his own Mind, by how much the more he finds the Alcibiades bettered by his instructions. Here's all the difference, the delight of sensual Love depending partly upon the powers of the Body, is therefore furious, short of duration, and subject to decay: the platonic depending solely upon the Mind, whose powers are perpetual, is therefore calm, of one equal tenor, and everlasting.  
Here finding my boat unexpectedly brought upon the blessed cost of the New Atlantis, or terrestrial paradise, FRIENDSHIP, where the aer is perpetually clear and s●rene, the sea pacific, and the land spontaneously fertile; a place wherein nothing is found but Consolations, whose King, Altabin, is a wise man; whose peaceful inhabitants are rich in their contempt of all pecuniary Commerce within themselves; where the Tirzan, of true Father of the Vine, Love, composes all differences, and extinguishes all animosities; and where the Sons and Daughters of Bensalem live in perfect amity and concord: being come, I say, to this happy Port, give me leave my dear Friend, here to cast anchor, and end my voyage. I had designed to sail farther, to discover what that wonderful something in Love is, which we observe to be more powerful than all calamities, more august than Honour, more splendid than Riches, more delightful than Pleasures, more sovereign than Empire, more venerable than authority, more charming than Beauty, more illustrious than Wisdom; that for which we contemn and trample upon all those glorious things, so much either feared, or adored by the world; yea, for which alone we do not contemn, but esteem and worship them: that, which so fully pleaseth alone, that even the vilest things please for the sake thereof; which enjoye's this privilege of Majesty, that nothing can turn to its dishonour; which is above the reach of Infamy, and can honest even 'vice itself. But, perceiving the Needle of my Cogitations, no less than that of my Affections, to fix itself on that point of the Compass, wherein you and I seek for Happiness in this life, our constant Friendship: I confess, my Mind is so entirely taken up with the ravishing Contemplation thereof, that I cannot at present divert it to prosecute what I intended to speak, concerning several other admirable and stupendious effects of this heroic Passion; whereof I have here drawn no perfect Picture, but only a rude Scetch, or rather a few gross and confused lines, by way of supplement to Your more artificial Representation of it, in your Ephestan Matron. Let us, therefore, now( if you please) go ashore, and repose ourselves in the newly mentioned iceland of ●ensalem,( where though we be not advanced to the honour of being Fellows or Brethren of Salomons House; yet we may be well received into the House of strangers) reserving what remains untouched of our Argument for another divertisement; and in the mean time, with our dearly beloved Don geoffrey, 

Beseeching every Lady bright of hew,  
And every gentle woman, what she be,  
Albeit that our Matrons were untrue,  
That for that guilt ye be not wrath with me.  
Ye may in other books their guilt se.  
And gladde● I would writ, if that ye less;  
Penelopes truth, and faith of good Alceste.   

Ne say I not this all only for these men,  
But most for women that betrayed be  
Through fals folk( God yeve hem sorrow, amen)  
That with great wit and subtlety  
Betraien you; and this meveth me  
To speak, and in effect you all I pray,  
Bethe ware of men, and herkeneth what I say.   

But God forbid, but a woman can  
Ben as true and loving as a man.  
For it is dainty to us men to find.  
A man, that can in love be true and kind.   

Thus endeth now my tale, and God us send  
Taling enough unto our lives end.¶     
FINIS.   

Some Books printed for Henry Herringman at the Anchor in the Lower walk of the New-Exchange.  

folios  
Dr. William Howel's History of the World.  
Pietro Della-Vals Travels.  
Astrea, a Romance; 1, 2, and 3 volume.  
Clelia, a Romance; 5th volume.  
Dom John de Castro.  
Grand Scipio a Romance.  
James Howels History of Venice.  
Bishop Andrews second volume of Sermons.  
Sir Robert Howard's four Plays.  
Wall-Flower, a Romance.  
Mrs. Phillips Poems.  
Mr. Abraham Cowley's Works.  
Ben. Johnson's second volume.   

quartos.  
Charleton's Natural History.  
His Immortality of the soul.  
His History of Stonehenge.  
His Character of the King.  
Boyle's essays in latin and English.  
Parthenissa, a Romance, in Five Tomes.  
Blunt's Art of making Devices.  
A Discourse of Schools and Schoolmasters.  
Fisher's Ironiodia Gratulatoria.  
Civil Right of Tithes.   

Octavo's large.  
Boyl's style of Scripture. 

His seraphic Love.  
His History of Colours.  
His Reflections.    
Bergerac's Letters.  
human Industry.  
human Soul.  
Sir Robert Howard's Poems.  
Sir Thomas Higgons Poems.  
Buscon, or the Witty-Spaniard.  
Rats Rym'd to death.  
Yelverton's Christian Religion.  
Characters on the Passions  
All Horace in English.  
Carter's Heraldry.  
Grand difference between France and Spain.  
Sucklings Poems and Remains.  
Pastor fido; English.  
Sir Toby Mathews Letters.  
Court of Rome.  
De-Laines French grammar  
Evelin of employment  
Dryden's Annus Mirabilis.  
Quevedo's Visions.  
Wallers Poems.  
Denhams Poems.  
Donns Poems.  
Crashaws Poems.  
Judgements of God against atheism and profaneness.  
Fleckno's Loves Dominion.  
The Ephesian Matron.  
Cimmerian Matron, to which is added the mysteries and Miracles of Love.   

Octavo's small.  
Bishop King's Poems.  
Game at Chess-Play.  
Davenant's Declamations  
Flecknoes Diarum  
Honest Ghost.  
Horace, his Odes and Epodes.  
Kellison on the 51 Psalm.  
Method of Reason; des carts.  
Musarum Delitiae.  
Pantagruel's Prognostication.  
heroic Education.  
Lo. Castlemains Account of Candiae.  
Carew's Poems.  
Sir Will. Davenant's Madagascar.  
Sir. Will. Davenants Gondibert.   

Large Twelves.  
Rawleighs Ghost.  
Gregory Nazianzen's Orations in English.  
Bishop Kings Psalms.  
Mazarines and Oliver Cromwels Design to surprise Ostend.   

Small Twelves.  
Amourus Fantasme, a Play.  
Enchanted Lovers, a Play.  
Balsacs Converson of the Roman.   

plays, Folio and Quarto.  
Adventures of Five hours.  
Mustapha.  
Henry the Fifth.  
Just Italian.  
Unfortunate Lovers.  
Love and Honour.  
Albovine King of the Lombards.  
Cruel Brothers.  
Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru.  
History of Sir Francis Drake.  
Siege of Rhodes, first and second Parts.  
Nuptial of Felius and Thetis.  
The Widow, a Comedy.  
Love in a Tub.  
Rival Ladies, a Comedy.  
Indian Emperour.  
Amazone Queen.  
Pompey the Great.  
Maiden Queen.  
The Usurper, a Tragedy.  
Cutter of Colemanstreet.  
The Carnival, a Comedy.  
Mayor of Queenborough.  
Tarugo's wil●ss, or the Coffee-house.  
Duke of Lerma.  
Villain, a Tragedy.  
Dryden's Essay of poesy.  
Duel of the stags.